Comments on: Not Your Typical IPA, Schlafly’s Export IPA

By: beer_scientist

beer_scientist — Thu, 30 Jul 2009 21:54:00 +0000

Otto,

I think that I’d echo what Nate said. It’s really not hard to talk good about you guys. We’ve been praising your stuff lately and your guys have twittered it, which gave us some nice traffic. I personally think there is a huge lack of British Style IPAs, Bitters, ESB or numerous other traditional versions. I just brewed a traditional style ESB myself. I would love for you to sample it…if just for kicks on my end…it might be one of our future brews.

By: Nate

Nate — Thu, 30 Jul 2009 19:21:30 +0000

Thanks for stopping by Otto, we’re quite honored to see your comment here!
Thanks for the info on the beer, too. I really enjoy learning the brewing process. Mike and I hope to open our own brewery someday in the near future. The time and care you guys put in does come through in the flavor.

I can see why you were hesitant to put out this style; American’s love their American IPA. As I said in my review I enjoyed it more.

Hopefully I see some Schlafly on the shelves in Toledo, OH someday, but in the meantime, it gives me a good excuse to visit my in-laws in KC!
Nate

By: Otto

Otto — Thu, 30 Jul 2009 18:45:09 +0000

Hey there,

Thanks for the great comments. It is refreshing to hear someone appreciating our Export IPA as a true to style example. I love the American IPA’s out there, in fact we will have one at our Hop in the City festival this year. When we put the Export IPA out, we had our doubts because so many people expect an IPA to taste like and American IPA. We use american malts, but will use a crystal malt instead of caramel to remain true to style and character of the caramel and toffee like falvors. The hops are English. We use Pilgrim and Northdown for bittering and flavor. We contract with English hop growers and we use very good quality East Kent Goldings both in the whirlopool and to dry hop this beer. We have a cool dry hopping process which uses whole cone hops instead of pellets. The dry hopped beers we make go throguh a vessel we call the Hop Rocket. EKG’s have a bit of a black mark on them as cheesy hops due to the fact that many sources of imported hops used to be and can still be old or poorly preserved from harvest and processing. We take great care to get this wonderful aroma hop in its true state infused in our beer to give a rich character in the nose. Thank you for your great comments. It always means alot to us here at Schlafly to hear great things. It makes it all worth while.

Cheers,
Otto, Head of Brewing Operations.

By: Nate

Nate — Sat, 25 Jul 2009 00:56:44 +0000

Yes! That’s exactly what I was suggesting…this is an “authentic” IPA, I do believe American IPA’s are (as the name”american IPA” suggests), a style in an of themselves. I resonate your frustrations with the top 2 ranking sites!

By: Simply beer

Simply beer — Fri, 24 Jul 2009 22:34:38 +0000

The funny thing is the English IPA is the typical IPA, the American IPA is a take off from the EIPA. An EIPA i particularly liked was the Belhaven Twisted Thistle. It is a problem with BA, RB, and quite frankly all of us that review beer, is we’ve been over saturated with AIPA’s and have forgotten or can’t appreciate an EIPA.

By: Nate

Nate — Fri, 24 Jul 2009 13:03:58 +0000

Hey scott,
it has been quite a while since I’ve had Samuel Smiths IPA. It is more what an ‘authentic’ IPA tastes like. I remember I liked it, but it didn’t derive the same ‘outstanding’ reaction that the Schlafly got from me. Do you get Schlafly over in PA?

By: Scott-TheBrewClub

Scott-TheBrewClub — Fri, 24 Jul 2009 12:23:58 +0000

Nice review Nate. Maybe that’s what I need to do and try an IPA of the English variety like the Schlafly you had. I’m not a big fan of IPA’s, or so I thought. Maybe I’m not a big fan of American Style IPAs. Is this anything like the Sam Smith IPA?